


Sleepless

by NamelessC



Series: Undertale Oneshots [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gender-Neutral Frisk, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelessC/pseuds/NamelessC
Summary: [...]Their hands rotated in the air from where they punctuated certain parts of their speech while fishing for the right words. Oh ye, sometimes he forgot that somehow English wasn't their native language. Humans were strange."Uh, like 'keep being there despite the circumstances' I guess. Man, I should have brought my phone to this talk... a dictionary would help. Anyway, in the end, it's just being a thick-skulled idiot."Frustration was written over their features, as he took a glance."i got it even without you looking up weird German words."[...]-----In which a Perseverance!Reader shares some moments with a sleepless Sans.Featuring theories and someone having slight problems with English not being their mother tongue.-----Writing practice that's almost a year old.





	Sleepless

Everyone was asleep except him, he was the only one awake. Of course he was, the nightmares got worse after that anomaly got them out of the Underground. It was not because of them, well not directly, it were the ‘what if?’s that plagued him and stole his rest.  
What if something happened Aboveground and they didn't want to reset?  
What if they never got a truce with the humans and history repeated itself?  
What if the human finally turned their back on them and offed them all?  
The last one scared him the most.  
They hadn't done it, yet. He was still confused *why* Frisk wasn't there even though they should have been the one falling down, not *them*.  
He may be a tad paranoid but gods, he was allowed to be after the shit in the Underground. Damn it, he needed air.  
His room felt suffocating, like it'd slowly choke him, with magic boiling in his SOUL, burning like the magma in Hotland.  
He took a shortcut out to the roof, flopping down and throwing his head back to look at the stars… only to find the black sky with clouds gradually going past. Fucking humans with their light pollution. At least he was still able to see the moon.  
The wind wheezing by, the sounds of tires along with furious honking were the only things surrounding him. Well, that was until he heard somebody walking on the roof, heading straight towards him.  
He kept his calm since he really didn't want to leave his place, it helped cool down his magic, but he also *really* didn't want to meet another racist asshole.  
Screw it.  
He turned around, looking back at the newcomer.  
They stood there, with their SOUL troubled and grim looking.  
He didn't leave, instead, he turned around again, subtly shifting a bit away as they joined him.  
“why are ya' here, kiddo?”  
“I wanted to see the night sky.”  
Their response was soft as if they didn't want to break the subtle tension around them.  
He hummed as only indication that he's heard their words.  
“You are here because of nightmares, aren't you?”  
Squinting he simply asked, “how?”  
A faint laugh echoed around the two.  
“I thought you had figured it out by now, I laid out enough clues.”  
They turned their head as he remained quiet, looking directly at the side of his face.  
“Then I guess it's time for me to reveal my oh so dark secret.”  
Their laugh was truly sincere now.  
He kept quiet, waiting for answers.  
“You know, before I fell down the mountain I met a kid. They didn't speak, but they had a note with them, addressing somebody with ‘human’.”  
Another laugh paused their speech.  
“I thought it was a funny little nickname for somebody, but as I wanted to return the piece or paper they feverishly shoved it back in my face. ‘What a strange kid.’, I thought.  
Well, they felt so horribly familiar, I didn't know why back then though, but I kept the note, telling them to go back to their authorities since the area we were in was dangerous for more careless people and I didn't want them to get hurt.  
As they followed my advice, I began to read the note, them already being out of sight.  
That note told a tale of monsters and how they were trapped. I couldn't grasp why I was drawn to the mountain since then.  
Someday I came back to ‘investigate’. It ended with me tripping into the biggest hole I had ever seen.”  
He looked at them finally, trying to gauge their emotions. They seemed happy along with a feeling of nostalgia in their SOUL.  
“However, I told you that I felt like I knew the kid from somewhere… As I met Flowey I was flooded with memories of a past timeline or so. Heck, I still don't know how that happened.”  
They sighed beside him, his gaze turned towards the moon. Man, it looked beautiful tonight.  
“Sans, I know all of you before I even met you.”  
“kid, you are not making any damn sense.”  
“Ugh, okay look. Did I act at least a tad scared around one single monster? Well except for Muffet and her spider family but that's only 'cause I have arachnophobia. Eh, did I ever question any activities or magic you guys did? No to both things. I even hinted at some timeline stuff in hopes that you'd get it. Instead, you shut yourself out even more! That's not what I wanted…"  
He shifted.  
"'s that the reason you're tellin' me all of this?"  
"Yeah, obviously, duh."  
"so you knew who you were because of memories, erased due to a reset? sounds reaaally plausible, kid."  
Out of the corner of his sockets, he could catch the sight of an arched brow.  
"Oh come on, but manipulating time through sheer will is normal, isn't it?"  
That shut him up fast. Honestly, where did they learn to sass people like that?  
They hummed.  
"Are you listening now?"  
He stayed silent, eyelights glued to his shorts.  
"Well, I'll take that as a yes! Before my life now, I somehow have had already lived. It was not too different but here, in this timeline my favorite game, which had been called 'Undertale' just for record's sake, didn't exist. Instead, the history of monsters was an old tale bleached by age.

See, in another timeline, you all were part of that game. On a side note, that's also why I instantly offered the ketchup to you at Grillby's. Because I *knew* you."

"i guess i get it. but what i don't is, why did frisk contact you? also, you are able to soft reset-"  
"Save and Load."  
"able to save and load, i noticed it through the tons of flashbacks i had thanks to you, but how? the research we had done pointed to it happening with red souls, but yours, kiddo, is purple."  
"I do have a theory to your first question. I guess that when Frisk fell, the game started. But a game never really ends, does it? At least that's how it usually is for the player. The player after all only controls a character, right? I think they figured that it will never stop until the player was *in* the game. Because then it would be… some sort of reality and not something to play with? I know that sounds really strange but-"  
His voice was low but still cut through their monologue.  
"they sent the goddamn anomaly. they sent the cause of the resets. i can't believe they didn't do that earlier. that little basta-"  
"Well, I believe they tried their best so it's no use cussing them out. Anyway, basically that's what they did I think, but you see, there's a big hole in that explanation. In my old timeline, there was a *ton* of players. Sending one of them would not do any good, would it? It could have just continued with hundreds of others playing…"  
After a beat of silence, they added, "I actually don't know, heh… that's the best I could come up with."  
"but it worked, whatever they did worked. by now everything would have reset and we'd all be back by zero and i'd keep having flashbacks along with the others. never completely figuring out why but it'd be tangible feeling, so close to knowing what's off… it's... scary."

They coexisted along with the sounds coming from around them, for a while nobody spoke, until

"And in this timeline, the game never even existed. Instead of it Toby Fox, once the creator of Undertale, made a different game. I think it was something about dogs? I honestly never played it or even researched it and I don't plan to.. it just feels wrong and strange."

 

Another lull in the rather one-sided conversation occurred, but they filled it soon.

"About the soul and determination or rather red soul thing, I figured that it depends on the situation and the trait the human carries, aka their soul color. Take for example patience, light blue. Sure they can wait for a long ass time but are they able to change big things, to actively do stuff for their luck, even defying their own death? The answer is simple, it's no. But let's look at justice, the yellow soul, if they believe something is unfair and just not right, they would gain immense strength and do a *lot* to change everything to suit their sense of justice.  
And my soul is purple, right? The color for perseverance. A trait very similar to determination but not as strong. Mh, germans translate it to 'Sturrköpfigkeit' or 'Beharrlichkeit'. You could see the first as 'not changing one's mind at all' or maybe in that sense strong willed… thick-skulled. Beharrlichkeit means something like…"  
Their hands rotated in the air from where they punctuated certain parts of their speech while fishing for the right words. Oh ye, sometimes he forgot that somehow English wasn't their native language. Humans were strange.  
"Uh, like 'keep being there despite the circumstances' I guess. Man, I should have brought my phone to this talk... a dictionary would help. Anyway, in the end, it's just being a thick-skulled idiot."  
Frustration was written over their features, as he took a glance.

"i got it even without you looking up weird German words."

 

…

"i'm surprised the game is apparently spot on."  
"Me too. Didn't notice many differences.."

A silence stretched between them and a yawn saved the atmosphere from being tense.

"tired, kiddo?"

A hum answered him.

"But I actually don't want to sleep. It always feels like this all would simply end suddenly."

"But right now it just feels peaceful."

And for once he agreed.


End file.
